


No More Waiting

by nyagosstar



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Polyamory, ace!Cullen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyagosstar/pseuds/nyagosstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've been doing this for about a year, and it still surprises Cullen how well they all fit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No More Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> For jack-the-giantkiller/revolutionjack, who requested aftercare or kink negotiation or a surprise and got a little something in between.

They are just finishing when Cullen comes to bed. Dorian’s eyes are half-lidded and his expression slack. Other than when he first woke—and not always then—post-coital was the only time Cullen ever saw him so unguarded. His smile is easy, his eyes soft. All his hard edges, his occasional viciousness, his anger, are all blunted and Cullen catches a glimpse of who Dorian might have been.

Bull smiles at him in welcome, untying the knots that hold Dorian, soothing the red marks on his skin, kissing the places where he pulled too hard. Cullen used to worry that they would stop welcoming him to bed when he had no desire to join them. What could they gain from him if he doesn’t want to have sex with them? But it has been almost a year they’ve been sharing meals and sleep and space and they’ve yet to turn him away. 

Cullen unbuckles his armor and sets aside his reports, keeping himself busy and apart until Bull is finished and the bed smells slightly less like sex. When they are settled, Bull on his back and Dorian plastered to his side, Cullen pours some water and brings it over.

“Drink,” he says, pressing it to Dorian’s lips.

Dorian drains half the cup, his hand on Cullen’s wrist in thanks. When Dorian is done, Cullen offers the rest to Bull. He kisses them both, soft at the corner of each mouth, and goes back to the reports at the desk. It isn’t too late, and he isn’t tired yet, and working in the room instead of his office is almost like taking a break. The sounds of them setting, the creak of the bed, the rumble of Bull’s deep tones—they are enough. 

At least, until Dorian whines at him and makes grabbing motions with his hands. 

“He’s right. You can work tomorrow.” Bull’s low voice fills the room and some of the bare places in his own heart. Bull holds out his hand and moves back to make space for him in the bed. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Cullen pulls off his shirt and strips down to his smalls. It wasn’t that it was an awful day, just a hard one. The pull of lyrium, usually distant, had been present and persistent. Half of his new recruits didn’t know one end of a sword from the other, and his temper was too short to deal with them without shouting. He has stacks of reports and problems he doesn’t know how to fix.

He crawls over Dorian, careful of his knees and hands and settles between them, pressed up against Bull, Dorian curled against his back. Bull breathes out a slow, even. He rubs his hand over Cullen’s shoulder while Dorian tucks his arm around Cullen’s waist and presses his face into the back of Cullen’s neck. Safe, quiet, held.

 

*

He started playing chess with Dorian as a distraction. When the craving for lyrium ate at him, it helped to sit in the sun and have Dorian chat at him, filling all the silence with his stories and broad gestures. He didn’t fuss the way Josephine could, and he didn’t watch the way Cullen asked of Cassandra. He just was.

The cravings for lyrium are less, but they’ve never given up the games. Cullen, for his part, has grown to crave something different.

“You did not,” Dorian laughs. 

“I did.” He smiles at Dorian’s delight. “I was very young and easily impressionable.” Reckless too. He thought too much of himself and his place in, not just the Order, but the world. 

A flash of heat sparks in Dorian’s eyes. “I can imagine.” He coughs and looks away, a thoughtful gesture for Cullen’s benefit. It isn’t necessary, he’s told Dorian before, but Dorian does it anyway. It is sweet and kind and sometimes so much that it’s hard for Cullen to breathe through it. This time, though, in the midst of their chess match, under the warm sun, it is a comfort. 

The moment passes, and Dorian starts up on a rare story from his childhood. He was reluctant to talk much about his life in Tevinter, other than the sharp, bright memories that were good for a laugh in a crowd around a fire or a game table. The quiet stories, the lonely childhood, the impossible expectations, the longing to be good enough—those are the stories reserved for Bull and Cullen alone.

Cullen treasures them, the gifts that they are, and tucks them away in a safe place. He touches Dorian in public—a hand cupped to his cheek, a kiss to the forehead, a hand at the small of his back—to remind Dorian that he’s is good enough, that he is worthy and that Cullen recognizes how lucky he is that he gets to share in a small piece of that. 

*

Bull and Dorian both return to Skyhold injured from a mission with the Inquisitor. Demons where there should have been fields, traps where there should have been nothing but tall grass. He sits between their beds in the healing rooms, one hand on Bull’s shoulder, on one of the few places not covered in bandages, the other twined with Dorian’s fingers.

He cannot sleep, he cannot rest. Not while there is a chance either of them might not recover. Cassandra brings him food they both know he will not eat. She sits with him in the silence, prays with him, her soft voice carrying his desperate hope to the Maker. She believes with a ferocity that Cullen both admires and envies. He used to have that same faith, but it’s harder now, after so many things.

Perhaps if they come back to him, if they both return from the brink he might be persuaded to deepen his faith. A terrible bargain he doesn’t want to wager. 

She leaves and is replaced by the Inquisitor. He fears that she is there to call him to the War Council. He will have to go, it is a call he cannot ignore, but it will gut him and leave him to bleed over his maps thinking that they are alone. Instead, she sits on the other side of Bull and apologizes, long and heartfelt.

But the one thing he knows of Bull and Dorian is that they are capable and strong and if they are injured, there is no fault to be found. Though he might wish to wrap them in cotton and keep them safe inside the walls of Skyhold, it is not necessary, nor would they thank him for hit. They are built to be in the midst of action, despite Bull’s keen mind and Dorian’s love of research. He has seen them in battle and they glow.

He absolves her of her guilt and she leaves him to tend them the only way he knows how, in silence and in presence. 

*

Bull is swift to tell Dorian what he needs. Cullen’s been around for enough of their foreplay to know that when Bull tells Dorian he needs to be tied and spanked, Dorian's eyes darken, his face flushes dark and his breathing comes quick. Dorian revels in Bull’s control.

With Cullen, Bull never directs. Only asks.

“You’re holding a lot of tension, there. You want to get off?”

He’s in his office, stacked high with paperwork and requisitions and problems. His shoulders ache from the tension. A release, even temporary, would be a kindness. He forgets, sometimes, that it’s an option, and Bull is always happy to remind him. “Thank you.”

Bull quirks a smile at him. “You want help?”

He considers, imagines the slide of Bull’s hand against his skin. Sometimes it works for him. “No, thank you.” But not today. “You can stay to watch, if you like.”

“Oh, fuck, yeah.” Bull drags the chair to the other side of the desk while Cullen unlaces his trousers and gives himself a firm, even stroke. He isn’t hard yet, but it’s a nice feeling. Touching himself, taking a break, having Bull right there.

He understands from Bull and Dorian that when they did this, they often imagine other people, of particular situations or positions. But when Cullen takes himself in hand, he thinks only of his own pleasure, the slide of skin and the tightening of muscles. He hears Bull’s breathing and soft sounds of encouragement, but he is mostly focused on himself.

His release comes quickly. It rolls through him, loosening the tension in his shoulders and relieving a pain in his neck he didn’t know he was carrying. 

Bull stands and offers him a handkerchief—a delicate little thing with embroidered flowers that he almost always has on hand—and kisses his temple. “You won’t stay too late?”

Cullen glances at the piles of paperwork, and considers the meeting he has later in the day. “I’ll try.”

Bull clears his throat and tries again, this time less of a question. “You won’t stay too late. We miss you.”

How can he say no to that? “I’ll do my best.”

Bull kisses him again and leaves him to his work.

*

Bull and Dorian are kissing, heated and close, stretched out on their bed, when he finally makes it to the room. Cullen doesn’t heave a sigh, exactly, but it’s a near thing. After a frustrating day, an overly long meeting with the Inquisitor, and a petty fight among the recruits that took two hours to sort out, he just wants to sleep. He’s kept his bed in the loft above his office. Mostly he uses it on days when he doesn’t have time to walk across Skyhold to their room, but the silence it offers this evening is tempting. 

He has his hand back on the door when Dorian pulls way. “Don’t go, Amatus.”

Cullen waves in their direction. “I don’t want to interrupt.” Nor does he want to stay and watch. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dorian extracts himself and crosses the room. “Nonsense. We were passing time until you came home.” He starts unbuckling Cullen’s armor with swift sure movements. Though Cullen can feel the heat of his arousal, Dorian’s touch is nothing but soothing. He has Cullen stripped down for sleep in a matter of moments. “Come to bed, you look exhausted.”

It isn’t hard to let Dorian lead him to their bed, to tuck in between Bull and Dorian, their hands soft and comforting. They talk over and around him as Cullen closes his eyes and soaks in their heat and their affection. And as he slips into sleep, he is content.


End file.
